Writer of Various Things

A Post About Film Stuff

A few of my readers have mentioned that mostly they just skim my blog looking for posts about Paul’s burgeoning film career, so I thought I would put “film” in the title of this update just to make it easier.
It’s been a busy and crazy week or so. The film from the clown shoot came back (from the developing lab) looking good, but the sound needed a little work. Apparently some of the acting performances were at the same level as the “sound floor” (which I think is the just what we used to call “room tone” or the “ambient sound”) of the location. Because of this he had to do quite a bit of “ADR” or Additional Dialogue Recording. Two of my lines got ADR’d over the weekend, so I can tell you about it.

The ADR room is a recording studio like ones you see in movies, where the band or singer is in a room, and the guy on the mixing board is in an adjacent room behind a glass window. Paul sat behind the window, and I went into the recording room and sat on a stool facing a TV monitor, and put on a big pair of headphones. Then he played the part of a scene he needed to re-dub. There is a line where I say “Thank you, Louie,” so he played that part over and over again. Each time it started again there would be a little “beep beep beep” to cue me, and then I would watch my own lips on the monitor, and say “Thank you, Louie.” Afterwards, he could listen to all the takes and pick the one that he felt worked the best. The hardest things about recording ADR is that you can hear your original performance at low volume, and you hear yourself talking in the present at a much higher volume, but it is just slightly delayed, like when you have a messed up phone connection, and hear yourself echoing.

Tuesday and Wednesday nights were was the shoot for the Coke contest. They shot at an office, so the shoots started at 5pm when the office closed, and went into the wee hours of the night. Thanks to our dedicated friends who stayed up til 3am to be extras!

And tonight was screening for the student films. His movie, “A Clown’s Life,” got a very good audience response, so he was very happy about this. So was I. My little brother Greg did a great job on the musical score. And even though on a personal level I’m not incredibly happy with him, I will still link to his recently formed company’s website here, because it looks very good and we’re proud of him.

Next up, the “Thesis pitch,” Only five people in Paul’s class of twenty-five will be awarded directorships for their final “thesis” films. On Monday and Tuesday, each student has to go in and “pitch’ their film idea, and based on that pitch, track record and some other criteria, the faculty will choose the lucky five. This is what Paul has been working hard for for the last year and a half…so please keep your fingers crossed!

(A couple notes not about film…my colonoscopy this morning…All clear, which is good news, because, you know, cancer would be such a damper on all of this.

And, I promised not to talk about this anymore, but I happened to see my Old English professor at the screenings. (His daughter is a talented actress who acts in many of the student films.) He said I was getting an A on my project…whoo hoo! If he noticed that I “abridged” it by about fifty lines of translation, he didn’t mention it, and so neither did I!